The Playmate Indicator

The Environmental Security Hypothesis says that in tough times men will prefer women who are good at production, generally older, taller, heavier, less curvaceous women with less body fat. In good times, they will prefer women who are good at reproduction, generally younger, shorter, lighter, more curvaceous women. Pettijohn and and Jungeberg look at the characteristics of playboy playmates from 1960 to 2000 and find:

Consistent with Environmental Security Hypothesis predictions, when social and economic conditions were difficult, older, heavier, taller Playboy Playmates of the Year with larger waists, smaller eyes, larger waist-to-hip ratios, smaller bust-to-waist ratios, and smaller body mass index values were selected. These results suggest that environmental security may influence perceptions and preferences for women with certain body and facial features.

Econometricians who wish to investigate further may download the data here (yes really). The 2008 Playmate of the year, Jayde Nicole. does not seem to fit the hypothesis however.

I am going to run this hypothesis past my wife tonight and try to ask for permission to examine the source data via monthly subscription.

JackOctober 16, 2008 at 9:17 am

And yet another good example of spurious regression for my class, once again coming from psychology!

AdamOctober 16, 2008 at 10:14 am

This analysis assumes that Playboy is a perfect mirror of men’s taste in women. No doubt it strives to be, but surely it’s not successful all of the time.

I would like to see some data on the popularity of the magazine itself during different economic conditions, how the subscription rates and newsstand sales rose and fell, and how Playboy’s competitor’s fared.

8October 16, 2008 at 11:33 am

You can look forward to slim pickings, but I’m an optimist.

Ted CraigOctober 16, 2008 at 12:38 pm

Wow, this is weird. Looking at all the Playmates since the study, it correlates fairly well. The best example is Tiffany Fallon (’05) and Kara Monaco (’06). Fallon, who appeared in the magazine in Dec. ’04, is the oldest Playmate of the Year this decade at 31. Monaco, by contrast, was 22. It looks like the Playmate of the Year is a lagging economic indicator.

I wonder why in the data there is no variables on economy, how did they measure good times and what was the lag of changing the preferences, if last year we had a good one, and this year – bad, will most of us start to look for another wife? Also i have an alternative hypnosis, which might as well fit the data: there might be a fashion cycle among men and women, younger males usually find it hard to compete with more mature males for the type the last prefer, so the younger are more eager to invest in relations with somehow different types of females, and younger females knowing that try to look and behave different. That makes the community more stable by easing competition among generations. This hypothesis is not as easy to test because we need to find some combinations of women parameters which change in cycle. But i think it’s doable.

skewedOctober 18, 2008 at 1:30 pm

You think Playmates are being honest about their measurements?

skewedOctober 18, 2008 at 1:30 pm

You think Playmates are being honest about their measurements?

xtophrOctober 18, 2008 at 9:56 pm

“What about things like Victoria’s Secret?”

Victoria’s Secret models aren’t meant to be sexy to men, at least not directly. They are meant to represent what women think is sexy to men, which is likely to be a lagging indicator of what men actually think is sexy.

Victoria’s Secret couldn’t care less what men think: we represent just a tiny fraction of their sales.

chswOctober 19, 2008 at 8:42 am

There may be one other effect on Playmates from an economic downturn – implant repossessions.

do these ‘scientists’ expect to find accurate portrayals of women in Playboy? I’m a commercial photographer. I’ve never shot for playboy, but I have spent countless hours smoothing skin, adjusting hip/waist ratios, enlarging pupils, etc. I can tell you that the images you see printed in playboy have very little in common with the girls who originally stood in front of the lens.

they need better source material. nice try, guys.

mysterysangelsOctober 23, 2008 at 2:10 am

It gives us more curvy women hope. Since I can’t work out countless hours during the day to have the “playmate” figure, because I am stuck doing research on these kind of studies to become a psychologist, the fact that the economy is going completely down the drain, I have something to look forward too…a future playmate figure!

Since this is in natural logarithms, BMI is a linear combination of height and weight, so I ran the variables separately rather than on BMI.

Bottom line: Height and weight have statistically significant relationship with GDP–higher growth rates are associated with taller, thinner models (lower BMI). Bust, waist, hips have no statistically significant relationship (neither do any of the measurement ratios, such as waist-to-hips).